Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 18, Issue 2, Article 13 (Dec., 2017) Ebru IŞIK, Gülcan ÇETIN and Murat ÖZARSLAN Students’ views about disease concept: Drawing and writing technique Previous Contents Next

Results

This section includes the findings from the descriptions and drawings about the students’ concept of disease. Theme and sub-themes frequencies of ninth grade students’ explanations and drawings about disease concept are given in Table 1. As seen in the Table 1, the explanations and drawings of the students were being gathered under eight themes for defining disease concept. Four themes were common.

Table 1. Frequencies of the students’ explanations and drawings about disease concept according to themes and sub-themes.

Theme	Sub-theme	Explanation (f)	Drawing (f)
Disease names	Measles Flu Cold Cancer, tumor Chicken pox Diabetes Total	4 2 2 2 1 1 12	- - - - 1 - 1
Disease causes	Microbe Malnutrition Bacteria Virus Food, beverages Cigarette, alcohol Dirty environment Cold Total	25 5 4 3 3 2 2 1 45	- 3 - - - 4 3 - 10
Disease consequences	Fatigue Sick Contagious Death Pain Disability Problem Sneeze Tear Sweat Total	19 6 5 4 2 1 1 - - - 38	- - - - - - - 3 2 1 6
Disease prevention	Doctor Sports Hospital Medicine Balanced nutrition Hygiene Sun Total	3 3 2 1 1 1 - 11	2 1 3 2 - - 1 9
Mental health	Bad, harm Unhappiness Total	13 1 14	- - 0
Figures about disease	Face Human beings Redness Black hearth Alien figure Total	- - - - - 0	68 57 9 1 1 136
Objects defining disease	Sickbed Thermometer Tissue Mask Gun Slippers Glasses Water Faded flower Total	- - - - - - - - - 0	23 6 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 39
Others	Body Health Organ Organelle Life span Cell Total	14 12 4 3 3 1 37	- - - - - - 0

Explanations about Disease Concept

According to Table 1, the students’ explanations about disease concept were categorized under six themes: Disease names (f=11), disease causes (f=45), disease consequences (f=26), disease prevention (f=11), mental health (f=14), and others (f=37). When the students’ explanations about disease concept were analyzed, it was observed that the students used mostly the following concepts: Microbe (f=25), fatigue (f=19), body (f=14), bad/harm (f=13), and health (f=12).

Disease is a state of physical, mental or social not well-being. When the students’ explanations about disease concept were analyzed, it was observed that the students referred mainly physical dimension of disease concept in their explanations by indicating fatigue, sick, contagious, death, pain, disability, and problem. However, they also mentioned about psychological dimensions of disease concept by indicating bad, harm and unhappiness concepts.

Some students related disease concept with disease names. For instance,

“Disease means catching microbe or influenza.” (S67)

“Disease is a thing that people never get rid of. Things such as flu, cold, diabetes.” (S10)

“Disease is an epidemic in a living being. There are diseases such as cancer, measles and so on. Disease results from microbe.” (S30)

A lot of students made a relationship between disease concept and disease causes, especially with microbe, bacteria and virus. For instance,

“... Disease means having a microbe bath …” (S1)

“Disease is an incident that is spread to people through microbes.” (S2)

“Disease means that people are captured by microbes.” (S34)

“Disease is a result that microbes and bacteria formed after entering the human body in some way.” (S48)

“Disease means that harmful microbes enter the body when the body is resistless and infect human beings …” (S9)

“Disease is that harmful bacteria enter the body and makes people weak.” (S8)

“Disease is that a kind of virus affects the body.” (S16)

“If the resistance of the body is broken, you get ill. If you don’t stay away from the places with microbe, you get ill again.” (S59)

Some students associated disease concept with irregular nutrition, catching cold and inadequate exercise. For instance,

“People get ill if they don’t eat well in a diet. People may be infected by things such as catching cold.” (S39)

“Disease is a thing such as measles that people go through clearly or unclearly or is a thing that results from malnutrition and inadequate exercise.” (S73)

Some students also explained disease concept by associating it with microbe and nutrition. For instance,

“Disease is a thing resulting from the fact that people eat unhealthy food and catch an infection.” (S60)

“People or living beings that don’t eat healthy food and live together with microbes get ill.” (S61)

“Disease comes into existence in people who don’t have a balanced diet and don’t take care of themselves and disease occurs in people who catch an infection.” (S53)

Some students associated disease concept with problem in body and pain. For instance,

“Disease is a factor that harms people and affects their health.” (S69)

“… Disease is problem in a human body …” (S63)

“Disease is a kind of ailment which is spread by other human beings or comes into existence spontaneously.” (S22)

“Disease means that a human being is very weak and his health is in a bad condition.” (S58)

“… Disease is that organs and organelles in the body of a living being work above normal in a way that will affect the body …” (S25).

“Disease is a bad thing that sometimes makes people have headache and sometimes makes people suffer.” (S42)

One student had misunderstanding about disease concept:

“Disease is organelles occurred by harmful cells.” (S71)

Drawings about Disease Concept

According to Table 1, the students’ drawings about disease concept were categorized under six themes. They were: Disease names (f=1), disease causes (f=10), disease consequences (f=6), disease prevention (f=10), figures about disease (f=136), and objects defining disease (f=40). It was observed that the students drew mostly the following figures: Face (f=68), human beings (f=57), sickbed (f=23), and redness (f=9).

When the students’ drawings about disease concept were analyzed, it was observed that students referred only physical dimension of disease concept in their drawings such as sneeze, tear, sweat, and sports.

Samples of the students’ drawings about disease concept are presented in Figures 4-13.

Figure 4. A girl with chicken pox (S53)	Figure 5. A black hearth (S16)

Figure 6. A sneezing girl and tissue (S21)	Figure 7. Dirty environment. Dry tree, garbage, garbage, garbage” (S80)

Figure 8. A sick and upset boy, sickbed and thermometer (S66)	Figure 9. A faded flower. It is sick (S62)

Figure 10. A sick and upset child, pill and water (S24)	Figure 11. An upset face (S1)

Figure 12. Hospital and human beings (S31)	Figure 13. A sick face and thermometer (S12)